Comparing Sweden/Finland/Denmark vs. other countries

Every few weeks someone writes an article comparing some amazing statistic from the Nordic countries in Europe and then compares that statistic to the United States in total. It’s always some ridiculous apples and oranges comparison that results in a meaningless comparison.

So just as a reminder, the populations of these countries are:

Sweden: 9.5 million

Denmark: 5.6 million

Finland: 5.4 million

Norway: 5 million

In addition, demographically and culturally they are relatively homogenous.

By contrast, the United States has a population of 314 million.

Next time you see someone playing the stats game with a Nordic vs. USA make it a bit more relevant.

Let’s use a US state that is similar to Nordic countries like say Massachusetts: Population 6.7 million.

Mass

Sweden

Population

6.7m

9.5m

White

84%

~98%

Lifespan

80.1

81.2

GDP per capita

$58,108

$57,297

Incarceration rate per 100k

218

67

Dominant Religion

Catholic 44%

Evangelical Lutheran: 94%

Mean income per person

$33,966

$21,1193

Now, I picked Massachusetts originally because it has some similar basic demographics (population and culture). Though, as you can see even here, while Massachusetts is relatively homogenous for a US state, it can’t touch Sweden.

None of this is meant to make one look better than the other. In fact, the chart above makes it clear that both have their own strengths. The point is that when someone tries to compare a homogenous nation state with a population of that of a smallish US state with the entire United States, put on your skeptics hat on.

When you did this comparison I half suspected you would use Minnesota. Due to the high percentage of Nordic decent.

I do find it interesting the comparisons made with such broad strokes between countries in general. Similar to when people compare states in the US. Especially when data is collected in a dissimilar way between countries. (Not necessarily the above statistics you are currently using).

I do enjoy telling my students that 49.5% of all statistics are made up.

I would like to see some more stats from those other Nordic countries. Not for comparison, but simply as research data. Our family has become more and more disullutioned with what the United States has become , and where it is headed. We are seriously looking at other countries where we can feel a better sense of personal freedom & more positive environment for raising a family.

I'm Swedish. The Nordic countries certainly have their own share of problems. Comparing statistics between our countries and others is fairly moot, as Frogboy points out there are just too many other factors that go into the equations. But that's not a reason to ignore our successes, just as we will surely not ignore yours.

@AceMatrix at least for Sweden our sense of personal freedom is pretty diminished by our high income taxes and cultural desire for political correctness. And thinking about more recent events, you can't escape the ever-watching eye of the NSA here as our secret services cooperate with the US ones.

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Thank-you for that Snowy. Actually Denmark had always been high on our list. The article was very informative and answered some other questions we had. We still don't know how difficult it is to enter these countries and become a part of the citizenry , so that is something I think will be a major focus of our research going forward.

Our family has become more and more disullutioned with what the United States has become , and where it is headed. We are seriously looking at other countries where we can feel a better sense of personal freedom & more positive environment for raising a family.

Australia...about the same size as the US....and 291 million fewer inhabitants.

OK...so we have the deadliest snakes, spiders, jellyfish, octopus, etc...etc...etc...on the planet - which could be the reason...

Australia...about the same size as the US....and 291 million fewer inhabitants.

OK...so we have the deadliest snakes, spiders, jellyfish, octopus, etc...etc...etc...on the planet - which could be the reason...

Actually , I have a very close friend there. He and his wife have a beautiful self-built home there in the outback. They specialize in all natural food and health products and have a thriving web-based business.

Quoting Jafo, reply 6Australia...about the same size as the US....and 291 million fewer inhabitants.

OK...so we have the deadliest snakes, spiders, jellyfish, octopus, etc...etc...etc...on the planet - which could be the reason...

Actually , I have a very close friend there. He and his wife have a beautiful self-built home there in the outback. They specialize in all natural food and health products and have a thriving web-based business.

Actually that's one example out of an entire country. That's like saying Obama is every American.

It the fault of those darn Socialist..er I mean Communist, wait no, I mean Anarchist.

I forget, which group is the latest boggie man?

We live in 'Merica. We're different. When we get sick, we just yank out our own tonsils. Don't need no commie pinko liberal nanny single payor state doing it for us.

Go USA!!

You know, it's blatently obvious what this thinly veiled topic is really saying, and what the discussion willl ultimately lead into.

Might as well allow politics in these forums because taking the "long route" to say what you really mean is tiresome.

Or.. it could be a legitimate, highly NON-controversial point that tiny homogeneous societies face significantly different challenges when implementing national policy than very large, highly diverse societies. And that those differences are worth considering when you make comparisons between two such societies.

Remember this thread? Before the OP was edited, it was full of ideological rants. Certain peopls's motivations are transparent.

http://forums.stardock.com/449807/page/3/#3414696

Wow.. you can link to somewhat political threads. Congrats, I guess? That doesn't change the fact that Brad's point ISN'T political. It's a statement fact to keep in mind when comparing two widely differing societies. It is, in fact, apolitical. It applies regardless of the political bent of the conversation in question. Take the US completely out of it. Implementing anything, say labor laws as an example, is a different problem in Germany than it is in Iceland because of the size difference and diversity difference of the two nations in question. Ignoring that fact when trying to make comparisons is dumb.

"Certain people's motivations are transparent" is really just a way to say "I'm going to interpret what you said however I want so I can rant and pretend to make a point."

And if I recall, Brad edited that thread specifically because he wanted to remove the political part of the article he quoted.

Why is race brought up? With the topics that are usually brought up in comparison, education, health care, criminality...whatever...why is the fact that these nations are 98% white even brought up?

I also wonder about the numbers. "White" is a very cultural term, and means different things to different people. Considering that 20% of Sweden's population is foreign born, with as many a 500,000 from the Middle east or India, seems unlikely that 98% being the number. But, some could easily define Persians or Turks as white. Also, does this also include native populations, minorities that would fall into "white" category, like "Lappish" or "Finns"?

But, why are the arguments less valid when compared to a mostly "white" nation?

In this case you are using "white" as shorthand for one homogenous culture. It really has little to do with race, per see, but more with distinct cultures. It is easier to design, implement and sell large national initiatives when you only have to worry about one major culture, rather than 2 or 3 or 12.

In this case you are using "white" as shorthand for one homogenous culture. It really has little to do with race, per see, but more with distinct cultures.

This is true, though to be fair there tends to be a strong relationship between "race" and "culture"...it may not be politically correct, but it is real...it is hard to statistically quantify how many followers there are of each "subculture", but it is much easier to quantify how many people there are of each race or religion....it's not perfect but no correlation is, and I think looking at the racial and religious background of a population is fair for this purpose...

Quoting psychoak, reply 15Crime rates in the US have been falling or holding steady over a period where they've multiplied by several times in Sweden.

I'd think that incarceration rates per 100,000 of the population would be a yardstick...

USA...716

Sweden...67

[Australia...130] ...

Of course...Capital Punishment might skew them a tad .... but again that's [partly] the US...

LOL. Jafo, you just provided an example of why this post exists.

You just compared Sweden to the entire United States. I even included the incarceration rate per 100,000 in the original post.

Massachusetts has an incarceration rate of 218 (and it's not even the lowest rate in the US) compared to the average for the USA which is (according to your stat) 716. That's a huge variance. That's why it's not useful to compare the entirety of the US to a 7 million population country.

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